Syrian Arab Republic

The Syrian Arab Republic was a Ba'athist republic located in the Middle East. The regime ruled Syria from 8 March 1963, with Hafez al-Assad bringing the Syrian Ba'ath Party to power in the country. Syria was under emergency law from 1963 to 2011, allowing for the al-Assad dictatorship (led by his son Bashar al-Assad after his death in 2000) to maintain its power through military force. Islamism was suppressed in the country, with the Syrian Arab Army violently putting down an Islamist uprising in the 1982 Hama massacre. The regime enforced secularism in the country, considering banning headscarves and beards, modernizing Syria.

However, Syria was defeated in its wars with Israel, including an occupation of Lebanon from 1975 to 2005. In 2011, the Arab Spring came to Syria in the form of protests, but the military's firing on protesters led to some army soldiers defecting to form the Free Syrian Army, and the Syrian Civil War broke out. The Syrian Arab Republic lost most of its territorial control to the Syrian Opposition and Islamic State in the ensuing war, and it relied on the assistance of paramilitary groups, Hezbollah, Iraq, Iran, and Russia to fight against the rebels. Syria had a population of 17,921,000 people in 2004, with 87% being Muslim, 10% Christian, and 3% Druze; 60% of the population consists of Sunni Arabs, 12% of Alawites, 9% Sunni Kurds, 9% Orthodox Christian Arabs, 4% Christian Armenians, 3% Druze, 2% Ismaili, and 1% Turkmen, Circassians, and Jews. Unfortunately, the civil war saw the opposing sides persecute minority groups, with most of the non-Muslim population becoming refugees as their people were massacred or discriminated against.